We followed a trail of yellow liquid draining from the back of the site downstream past a neighboring industrial bakery and into the Edison Glen and Edison Woods residential developments.

There we videotaped a child playing in the poisoned stream who told us it was a good place to hang out and look for frogs and turtles. I subsequently found out that the vacant Superfund lot was a playground for local children, the chemical lagoons were their wading pools, and adults routinely scavenged materials from the site.

Bob [Spiegel] called the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and when their response seemed to be limited to posting a few warning signs, he and his friend rented a movie theatre and showed their videotapes to increasingly agitated crowds. “We scared the hell out of everybody,” Spiegel says. The EPA immediately scheduled a public meeting.